NASFAA Releases Budget Effect Estimator

How Will Potential 2018 Budget Cuts Impact Individual Schools? This New Tool Breaks It Down

June 23, 2017 — Although federal student aid programs at large are at risk in President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, the true impact could vary widely between campuses. In an effort to help individual schools better understand the implications of the budget proposal, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) created a Budget Effect Estimator, which will illustrate what these cuts will mean for students at colleges nationwide.

NASFAA’s Budget Effect Estimator, released today, paints a picture of the repercussion significant cuts to federal student aid programs would have on individual campuses, using data for the award year 2015-16 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid Data Center and from NASFAA’s Campus-Based Aid Allocation Task Force Report.

The Budget Effect Estimator allows financial aid professionals and other interested stakeholders to search for individual institutions, and displays information about how various aspects of the Trump administration’s budget proposal would impact students on campus. For example, the estimator will display the anticipated total loss in student aid, as well as individual programs such as the Pell Grant Program, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) Program, and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Program. Additionally, the estimator will display roughly how many students under each program would lose access to financial aid. Particularly because of the complicated allocation formula for FWS, the estimator will show what the president’s proposed 50 percent FWS cut would mean to each institution’s individual allocation. For some institutions, the proposed 50 percent cut could translate to a cut to an institution’s individual allocation as large as 95 percent or as low as 25 percent.

“The Trump administration’s budget proposal imposes devastating cuts on the federal financial aid programs that many college students rely on to pay for college, totalling to almost $150 billion in cuts over the next decade,” said NASFAA President and CEO Justin Draeger. “Imposing such draconian cuts would pull the rug out from under millions of students hoping to improve their lives through education. NASFAA remains committed to advocating on behalf of students who count on the federal student aid programs to pay for college, particularly students from the lowest income brackets. We encourage Congress to create a budget that will aid these students in their quest for the American Dream, and include adequate levels of support for all students pursuing a higher education.”

About NASFAAThe National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents more than 20,000 financial aid professionals at nearly 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every ten undergraduates in the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators. For more information, visit www.nasfaa.org.